THE MUSLIM TONY JAA?

I love me a good martial arts movie, and while a Crouching Tiger wire-fu fest bores me to tears, I could watch Tony Jaa destroy the bastards who stole his elephant for days at a time (preferably as one long tracking shot). This trailer is for Indonesian martial arts film Merantau, starring Silat practitioner Iko Uwais. Based on the trailer below, it looks like it combines the basic brutality of Tony Jaa with some of the creative prop-use and acrobatics of old-school Jackie Chan.

In Minangkabau, West Sumatra, Yuda a skilled practitioner of Silat Harimau is in the final preparations to begin his “Merantau” a century’s old rites-of-passage to be carried out by the community’s young men that will see him leave the comforts of his idyllic farming village and make a name for himself in the bustling city of Jakarta. After a series of setbacks leave Yuda homeless and uncertain about his new future, a chance encounter results in him defending the orphaned Astri from becoming the latest victim of a European human trafficking ring led by the wildly psychotic, Ratger and his right-hand man Luc. [Twitch]

“European human trafficking”? Whoa, is that like reverse white-slavery? In any case, “color” me excited. Xenophobia and fistfights go together like loneliness and kitties. Weeee, the fur allows me to momentarily forget my mortality!